Sunday, March 27, 2016

John West Plays Fair, Judges Objectively In A Tough Position

For example, experience and calm under pressure come into play when escort pilots are trying to stay parallel to a channel swimmer in turbulent conditions, when a coach is trying to keep a marathon swimmer going when they are feeling poorly, when a race director is simultaneously coordinating myriad activities during an event, or a lifeguard is making a rescue of a swimmer.

But the responsibilities and pressure that FINA's John West will face on Copacabana Beach at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games will be extraordinarily significant. West will serve as the head referee during the women's 10 km marathon swim.

Not only are the women's competitions commonly acknowledged to be more difficult to referee than the men's competitions, but West will also face the scrutiny of hundreds of thousands of Brazilian fans who will line up on the shores of Copacabana Beach watching their two favorite athletes - Ana Marcela Cunha and Poliana Okimoto - compete for Olympic gold.

The women, by all accounts, swim in closer proximity to each other than their male counterparts, and can hit, pull, impede, elbow and kick viciously and repeatedly in competitions. Women have experienced chipped teeth, broken ribs, bruises, and lacerations of all sorts during the international competitions.

But West, a long-time representative of New Zealand Swimming, has to make all objective sense of the aquatic scrum and inevitable physicality during the race. He will be expected to fairly dish out warning whistles, yellow cards and red cards - and quite possibly, defend his split-second decisions in heated post-race protests. He has served numerous times at many highly competitive events on the FINA 10K Marathon Swimming World Cup and FINA Open Water Swimming Grand Prix circuits.

The pressure is on, but the cool-headed Kiwi - always armed with a radio headset, whistle, list of competitors and binoculars - is up to the task.

The Other Shore

The Other Shore follows world record holder and legendary swimmer Diana Nyad as she comes out of a thirty-year retirement to re-attempt an elusive dream: swimming 103 miles non-stop from Cuba to Florida without the use of a shark cage. Her past and present collide in her obsession with a feat that nobody has ever accomplished. At the edge of The Devil’s Triangle, tropical storms, sharks, venomous jellyfish, and one of the strongest ocean currents in the world, all prove to be life-threatening realities. Timothy Wheeler’s documentary brings Diana Nyad’s extraordinary adventure to life as Diana sets out to prove that will and determination are all you need to make the unimaginable possible.LEARN MORE...

2014 Open Water Swimming Almanac

An Almanac for Open Water Swimming

An almanac is essentially a body of knowledge which is so complete that it enables people in different fields to make predictions about the future of their respective industries.

This, for example, was the purpose of the traditional farmers almanacs. It enabled farmers to determine as accurately as possible which crops to plant for the greatest harvests in a given year.

But the farmers almanac was just one example among many. There are, of course, many different kinds of almanacs.

Congratulations to Antonio Argüelles Díaz-González of Mexico

Congratulations to Andrea Fazio of Italy

Congratulations to World Ice Swimming Championships In Murmansk, Russia

2015 World Open Water Swimming Offering of the Year

Lewis Pugh Presents WOWSA Awards at Big Chill Swim

5 February 2016 in Windermere

2014 & 2015 WOWSA Awards

World Open Water Swimming Man of the Year, World Open Water Swimming Woman of the Year, World Open Water Swimming Performance of the Year and World Open Water Swimming Offering of the Year will be celebrated at the Big Chill Swim, one of the world's largest winter swimming festivals

FINIS Custom Suits

Swim Pain Free

Open Water Personality Test

Professional Open Water Coaching

Ocean Games In New Jersey

1 - 3 - 9 mile ocean swims on July 19th

FINIS Instinct

FINIS Agility Paddles

One of the World's Top Open Water Swim

Open Water Swimming in Italy

SWIM THE ISLAND is the ultimate open water swimming event taking place in the fascinating Marine Protected Area of Bergeggi, in the north-west coast of Italy. The event takes place in an absolutely spectacular natural setting, offering swimmers the vision of one of the most extraordinary seabeds of the Mediterranean sea.